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IDProjectCategoryView StatusDate SubmittedLast Update
0003636DoomseekerUIpublic2019-04-24 14:482019-07-30 10:13
ReporterZalewa 
Assigned ToZalewa 
PriorityhighSeveritytweakReproducibilityN/A
StatusclosedResolutionfixed 
PlatformOSOS Version
Product Version1.1 
Target Version1.3Fixed in Version1.3 
Summary0003636: Create Game box - adjust UI elements to Host, Offline and Remote modes
DescriptionCreate Game box could use some more distinctive separation when it comes to the modes it operates on. The "Remote game setup" mode for Chocolate Doom already disables some widgets, but they could just be hidden to reduce interface clutter. The "Host server" and "Play offline" modes could be separated.

There are some items in the box that only make sense when you host a server - UPNP, broadcasts, port, connect, join and rcon passwords. Moreover, some games (depending on a game and OS it runs on) may use different executables for hosting a server and for an offline game. A solution for this duality is to add a switch of some kind to the Create Game box that will put it into one of the definite modes: offline or server. As most options are the same, it should be possible to dynamically switch between the two modes without losing any of the previously input data.

The box should also clearly state in which mode it currently is.
Attached Filespng file icon 2019-05-02-193604_maim.png [^] (74,715 bytes) 2019-05-02 19:37


jpg file icon doomseeker-create-game-proposal-2.jpg [^] (97,282 bytes) 2019-05-03 12:23


jpg file icon doomseeker-create-game-proposal-3.jpg [^] (83,921 bytes) 2019-05-03 14:47


png file icon doomseeker-1.2-create-game.png [^] (77,788 bytes) 2019-05-03 16:16


png file icon doomseeker-1.1+e53ca17-create-game.png [^] (51,901 bytes) 2019-05-03 16:54


png file icon doomseeker-create-game-proposal-3-debian.png [^] (55,564 bytes) 2019-05-03 17:15

- Relationships
related to 0003646closedZalewa Create Game's "Save" button has a distinguishable icon, but "Load" button does not 
related to 0003647closedZalewa Create Game window titles aren't prefixed by program name 
related to 0003676resolvedZalewa There are button/graphic inconsistencies in the UI (0003636
child of 0003480confirmed Optional simplification of Create Game box 

-  Notes
User avatar (0020605)
Zalewa (developer)
2019-05-02 14:03
edited on: 2019-05-02 14:04

This should be done, however I decided not to push directly to the main repository this time. Instead I created a PR for this:

'https://bitbucket.org/Doomseeker/doomseeker/pull-requests/65 [^]'

This change introduces some significant appearance changes to the Create Game box. I think it's better now but I'd still like that to be checked by another pair of eyes (or two) before merging this into the main repo.

Relevant CHANGELOG entry will look like this:


- "Create Game" box:
    - There's now a distinctive split between hosting a server and
      playing an offline game. This choice is no longer made as a final
      step by pressing one of the two "Start" buttons, but is now
      determined from the "Create Game" dialog box menu that also
      affects how this "Create Game" box looks like. When "offline"
      mode is selected, the options that only make sense for a server
      hosting are hidden. The values stored in those options are,
      however, remembered and will be saved in the configuration if user
      chooses to switch their mode back to "host a server". There is
      some visual feedback provided to inform the user in which mode
      the box currently is: the title of the box is directly related
      and also the text of the "Start game" button adjusts.
    - Another (initially invisible) change splits the behavior of
      the game executable selector combo box. Each of the 3 modes:
      "Play offline", "Host a server" and "Configure remote game"
      now track separate game executables. This is to accomodate
      for source-ports that use more than one executable.
    - Move bottom buttons of the "Create Game" dialog box to menu bar
      actions. The menu bar is now presented at the top of that dialog
      box just like in the main window. Game configuration, program
      configuration and launch mode can now be picked from that menu.
    - Rename "Misc." tab in the Create Game box to "Server".


User avatar (0020606)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-02 18:53
edited on: 2019-05-02 19:05

Thanks a lot so far, Zalewa. Your changes are definitely an improvement and remind me more of what Doomseeker 1.1 used to be. Doomseeker 1.2's UI in Create Game is a bit yucky, to say the least!
Some feedback:
  • The bold "Host server!" button seemed out of place/unexpected at first glance in my opinion. I generally do not expect to find bold/strong words with an exclamation in buttons (unless it's danger). I do prefer the old text copy, which was "Start server". I would consider alternative forms of conveying the message, such as an icon on the button.
    • It could be the game engine icon for "Host server!" / "Play!", for example. (Initially I thought the Doom marines icon, but we can't use that on free distros and I quickly figured out the game engine icon makes more sense.)
    • Command line can stay as is or have an icon representing a terminal.

  • For "Play!" in offline mode, the previous complaint might be less disturbing here. I like the wording (more than the previous "Play offline").
  • Where is "Configure remote game"? I can't seem to locate this. If this was meant to be invisible, okay.
  • Re: renaming "Misc." to "Server": Would naming it "Multiplayer" or "Online" stand out better?
    • Caveat: Renaming it again may create confusion, because Chocolate Doom servers can be multiplayer/online but the tab will be unavailable.
    • Else I'd keep it as "Misc."

  • The "Mode" and "Settings" dropdown menus are a welcome addition to reduce the clutter.
  • People usually hate change, like change left-aligning the "Host Server!" / "Play!" and "Command line" buttons.


User avatar (0020608)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-02 19:05
edited on: 2019-05-02 19:08

Re: previous comment: I edited and move some irrelevant comments to the parent issue at 0003480:0020607.

User avatar (0020609)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-02 19:36

Hope you don't mind, I'm also attaching a screenshot of your work to ease review (for those who don't compile from source).
User avatar (0020610)
Zalewa (developer)
2019-05-02 21:01

Quote

The bold "Host server!" button seemed out of place/unexpected at first glance in my opinion.

* It could [show instead] the game engine icon for "Host server!" / "Play!"

* Command line can stay as is or have an icon representing a terminal.


The bold text was meant to state that this action will start the game, but as you say an appropriate icon may be just enough. I'll toy with this a bit more. The bold text will be gone, probably.

Quote

Where is "Configure remote game"? I can't seem to locate this. If this was meant to be invisible, okay.


The box in this mode is opened when you try to join an empty Chocolate Doom server.

Quote

Re: renaming "Misc." to "Server": Would naming it "Multiplayer" or "Online" stand out better?


I think "Server" is the best that can be put there. "Misc." doesn't fit with the fact that this tab is always disabled in offline game mode. Your other proposals don't sound any more accurate to me.

Quote

People usually hate change, like change left-aligning the "Host Server!" / "Play!" and "Command line" buttons.


To be frank it's bothering me too that the buttons are in a different place now. I'll probably move them back to the right side.

----

Also, from your comment 0003480:0020607 from the other ticket:

Quote

For purposes of consistency, I'm not sure if the window title should be prefixed with "Create Game – ". We generally prefix many window titles with "Doomseeker – ", however Create Game was always an exception and was always simply "Create Game". What do you think?


TBH I didn't even think of it. I'll scan the Create Game code for the presence of various titles and prefix them with "Doomseeker -" wherever appropriate as this will be more consistent with the other parts of the program.

Quote

Give us Ctrl + S / Ctrl + O hotkeys for saving/loading game configuration files.


With the main menu being present now it should be easy as Qt should auto-wire that. I only hope it won't clash with the same shortcuts in the main window.

Quote

Replace "Close" button with Apply / Cancel / Close? Be aware I'm not convinced what the context for this would be, there's a risk of this becoming more confusing / complex than necessary.


Apply or Cancel would really not make any sense here. "Close" as it is may be extraneous as it achieves the same purpose as the 'X' button provided in the window frame by the windowing system, but it's usually expected for a dialog box to have an extraneous 'X' button in a form of "No", "Cancel" or "Close" anyway.

Quote

One nice future improvement may be adding an appropriate icon (maybe a folder icon) to the left of "Load game configuration" in the new settings dropdown menu.


Indeed.
User avatar (0020611)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-02 22:00

Quote from Zalewa
TBH I didn't even think of it. I'll scan the Create Game code for the presence of various titles and prefix them with "Doomseeker -" wherever appropriate as this will be more consistent with the other parts of the program.


Issue TBD. (I remember I didn't report this for Doomseeker 1.1 for being trivial or a non-issue.)

Quote from Zalewa
With the main menu being present now it should be easy as Qt should auto-wire that. I only hope it won't clash with the same shortcuts in the main window.


This is 0003645.

Quote from Zalewa
Indeed.


0003646.
User avatar (0020613)
Zalewa (developer)
2019-05-03 12:21

I've updated the PR with the next iteration of the proposed UI. Highlights:

* "Start Game" and "Command Line" buttons were moved to a toolbar which now sits at the top of the window below the menu.

* "Close" button is gone. I know this is contrary to what I said before, but it really did not fit with the toolbar approach. I hope we can rely on all windowing systems to provide the 'X' button on the titlebar. The box can also be closed with the ESCAPE key on the keyboard. If lack of "Close" button will be a problem, an "Exit" button can be added to the toolbar.

* Load/Save settings options have kbd shortcuts and the load option has an icon now.

* The useless '?' button is gone from the box's title bar.

* "Doomseeker - " prefix has been added to the titles I've found in the main class of this box.

* Borders and extra padding have been removed from the main tab widget making the widgets in the box stick closer to its edges.


One thing to consider is that all of the menu options can be moved to the toolbar, thus removing the necessity to have the menu bar at all. I don't have any icons for the "Offline/Host" mode toggles, tho. Perhaps the LAN and localhost "flags" would fit there?

User avatar (0020617)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-03 13:20

Looking at the screenshot, my opinion:
  • Can we keep the "Play!" and "Start server" buttons at the bottom with an icon? As I said, people generally hate big change.
    • There's icons on the "Add" and "Remove" buttons. My original suggestion was to use that approach for "Play!" and "Start server" buttons.
    • How many times in Doomseeker's main window have you pressed anything but the big refresh button or Create Game at top left? I haven't.
    • The big "Play" button in the new Create Game toolbar design is already associated with Demo Manager in main window. This will likely be confusing.

  • Close button: Same as above. I'm not sure what removing it benefits. At very least an "close window" menu item would be possibly needed, if removed.

Quote from Zalewa
One thing to consider is that all of the menu options can be moved to the toolbar

I'm supportive for more experimenting with this idea or mock drawings.
User avatar (0020618)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-03 13:29
edited on: 2019-05-03 13:30

Additionally, I think keeping the "Play!" buttons et cetera at bottom makes more sense to the reader with eyes: You start with configuration at top, and once done you finish your action at the bottom.
For the main server browser window, the toolbar design there makes more sense: Unless you have the server browser list servers on startup, you click on the "refresh servers" button first and then move down to find the server you want. Or you go to Create Game before looking at the server browser.
The new proposed toolbar design with big buttons for Create Game window would be contradictory and inconsistent to current practices, in my opinion.

User avatar (0020619)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-03 13:32

Anyway, are we done with this issue? Can we discuss the other issues like button placement in some other issue?
User avatar (0020622)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-03 13:39

Fyi, FTBFS related to recent change: 0003646:0020621
User avatar (0020625)
Zalewa (developer)
2019-05-03 14:48

I think that the window with the toolbar looks cleaner and is not confusing even if you're used to the previous design, but I'll agree with you to err on the cautious side and stick to the previous design for the time being. Proposal 3 reverts the button placement. I also already added necessary reverts to the PR.
User avatar (0020626)
Zalewa (developer)
2019-05-03 15:08

I'm done with pushing code to the PR. If there are no further remarks then I'll clean it up and merge it into the repo proper.
User avatar (0020627)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-03 16:55

I attached screenshots from Doomseeker 1.1 (actually 1.2~beta) and 1.2 release for completeness for comparison.
User avatar (0020628)
WubTheCaptain (reporter)
2019-05-03 17:14

Quote from Zalewa
Borders and extra padding have been removed from the main tab widget making the widgets in the box stick closer to its edges.


The more I look at it, the more inconsistencies I find around Doomseeker when it comes to this. "About Doomseeker" is an obvious example.

I have to attach a screenshot of proposal 3 on Debian GNU/Linux to show you the difference, because it's not nearly like on Windows.

Then there's even more off-topic irrelevant UI inconsistencies, such as missing icons next to "Close" buttons that can be found in "About Doomseeker" but not in "Create Game". Agh! I have issues to report tomorrow.

Honestly, the issue in OP is resolved or very close to it. Any UI issues I'd report somewhere. Zalewa, please feel free to merge this imho for testing. We'll polish it soon in other reported issues, I hope.
User avatar (0020632)
Zalewa (developer)
2019-05-03 21:01

The bulk change merged here:'https://bitbucket.org/Doomseeker/doomseeker/commits/c55d8d5784fa2c1a96da7b8cff0148e8c7457741 [^]'

Plus some UI tweaks here:'https://bitbucket.org/Doomseeker/doomseeker/commits/41f4ebbeb3f36b01fd4d5eff98f3316953a82f15 [^]'
User avatar (0020872)
Pol M (developer)
2019-07-12 18:08
edited on: 2019-07-13 18:10

Everything looks good. I've also reviewed the code, and it was Zalewa's quality code. 10/10 IGN, approved.
Wait. It looks like the plugin used in the remote mode is always the first one in the list, since the value in: CreateServerDialog::makeRemoteGameSetupDialog is ignored. This leads to chocolate-doom being selected, but if another plugin used this functionality it wouldn't work.

User avatar (0020880)
Zalewa (developer)
2019-07-13 21:02
edited on: 2019-07-14 13:15

Should be fixed here:'https://bitbucket.org/Doomseeker/doomseeker/commits/d4ed06aa395bd956e60e827a045d6e03959534c8 [^]'

I didn't want to touch the MAIN_EXPORT API so I kept the 'const' qualifier on the EnginePlugin* argument in the API for the Create Game dialog and instead used const_cast<> to remove the qualifier. This could also be done by extracting the EnginePlugin pointer from PluginLoader by its name, but I figured const_cast<> will do the same job.

User avatar (0020881)
Pol M (developer)
2019-07-14 20:02

This fixes the issue. Resolving.

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- Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
2019-04-24 14:48 Zalewa New Issue
2019-04-24 14:48 Zalewa Status new => assigned
2019-04-24 14:48 Zalewa Assigned To => Zalewa
2019-04-24 14:48 Zalewa Relationship added child of 0003480
2019-05-02 14:03 Zalewa Note Added: 0020605
2019-05-02 14:03 Zalewa Status assigned => needs review
2019-05-02 14:04 Zalewa Note Edited: 0020605 View Revisions
2019-05-02 18:53 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020606
2019-05-02 18:53 WubTheCaptain Status needs review => feedback
2019-05-02 18:57 WubTheCaptain Note Edited: 0020606 View Revisions
2019-05-02 19:04 WubTheCaptain Note Edited: 0020606 View Revisions
2019-05-02 19:05 WubTheCaptain Note Edited: 0020606 View Revisions
2019-05-02 19:05 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020608
2019-05-02 19:08 WubTheCaptain Note Edited: 0020608 View Revisions
2019-05-02 19:29 WubTheCaptain Relationship added related to 0003646
2019-05-02 19:36 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020609
2019-05-02 19:37 WubTheCaptain File Added: 2019-05-02-193604_maim.png
2019-05-02 21:01 Zalewa Note Added: 0020610
2019-05-02 21:01 Zalewa Status feedback => assigned
2019-05-02 22:00 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020611
2019-05-03 08:38 WubTheCaptain Relationship added related to 0003647
2019-05-03 12:21 Zalewa Note Added: 0020613
2019-05-03 12:21 Zalewa Status assigned => needs review
2019-05-03 12:23 Zalewa File Added: doomseeker-create-game-proposal-2.jpg
2019-05-03 13:20 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020617
2019-05-03 13:20 WubTheCaptain Status needs review => feedback
2019-05-03 13:29 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020618
2019-05-03 13:30 WubTheCaptain Note Edited: 0020618 View Revisions
2019-05-03 13:32 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020619
2019-05-03 13:34 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020620
2019-05-03 13:35 WubTheCaptain Note Deleted: 0020620
2019-05-03 13:39 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020622
2019-05-03 14:47 Zalewa File Added: doomseeker-create-game-proposal-3.jpg
2019-05-03 14:48 Zalewa Note Added: 0020625
2019-05-03 14:48 Zalewa Status feedback => assigned
2019-05-03 15:08 Zalewa Note Added: 0020626
2019-05-03 15:08 Zalewa Status assigned => needs review
2019-05-03 16:16 WubTheCaptain File Added: doomseeker-1.2-create-game.png
2019-05-03 16:54 WubTheCaptain File Added: doomseeker-1.1+e53ca17-create-game.png
2019-05-03 16:55 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020627
2019-05-03 17:14 WubTheCaptain Note Added: 0020628
2019-05-03 17:14 WubTheCaptain Status needs review => needs testing
2019-05-03 17:15 WubTheCaptain File Added: doomseeker-create-game-proposal-3-debian.png
2019-05-03 21:01 Zalewa Note Added: 0020632
2019-07-12 18:08 Pol M Note Added: 0020872
2019-07-12 18:08 Pol M Status needs testing => resolved
2019-07-12 18:08 Pol M Fixed in Version => 1.3
2019-07-12 18:08 Pol M Resolution open => fixed
2019-07-12 18:25 WubTheCaptain Relationship added related to 0003676
2019-07-13 18:10 Pol M Note Edited: 0020872 View Revisions
2019-07-13 18:10 Pol M Status resolved => assigned
2019-07-13 18:10 Pol M Resolution fixed => open
2019-07-13 18:10 Pol M Fixed in Version 1.3 =>
2019-07-13 19:47 WubTheCaptain Resolution open => reopened
2019-07-13 21:02 Zalewa Note Added: 0020880
2019-07-14 13:15 Zalewa Note Edited: 0020880 View Revisions
2019-07-14 13:15 Zalewa Status assigned => needs testing
2019-07-14 20:02 Pol M Note Added: 0020881
2019-07-14 20:02 Pol M Status needs testing => resolved
2019-07-14 20:02 Pol M Fixed in Version => 1.3
2019-07-14 20:02 Pol M Resolution reopened => fixed
2019-07-30 10:13 WubTheCaptain Status resolved => closed






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